Chelsea Manning Continues Her Fight to Grow Her Hair Long

Chelsea Manning, the transgender soldier behind bars for leaking military documents, is escalating a fight to wear her hair long as a woman in a jail for men.

Manning is serving a 35-year sentence in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has been pursuing treatment for gender dysphoria, the medical term for people who identify with a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth. Earlier this year, the military approved some of the treatment — hormones, female underwear, counseling, and cosmetics — after Manning filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union last fall. But military officials have not allowed Manning to grow her hair, which the ACLU says is a critical part of treatment prescribed by military doctors.

Per the rules at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, a military prison for men, inmates must keep their hair to 2 inches. (In the military prison for women, inmates can have longer hair.) The ACLU filed an amended complaint last month, and military officials filed a motion to dismiss the case. Last week, the Department of Justice filed a brief in support of that motion to dismiss. In the brief, the government argued, among other things, that Manning is receiving "a significant amount of medical treatment for her gender dysphoria" and that making an exception to the hair rule would undermine the prison's military discipline and "pose a significant security risk."

Chase Strangio, Manning's ACLU lawyer, says the government is implying that Manning's own security is at risk if she wears her hair in a feminine style. "The government does suggest, in part, that they are prohibiting Chelsea's treatment because it will put her at risk of assault and harassment," he told Cosmopolitan.com. "The government has a separate constitutional and statutory obligation to keep Chelsea safe, and that cannot be achieved by denying her other constitutional rights."

The Army referred Cosmopolitan.com to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment for this article.

"Treating Chelsea, a transgender woman, as male and denying her this feminizing treatment is a huge risk to her physical and emotional safety," Strangio said. "So many transgender women in custody and in the free world take their own lives because of these denials of care. The government is greatly diminishing and almost mocking the severity of Chelsea's needs."

In a post for Medium last week, Manning wrote, "Presenting myself in the gender that I am is about my right to exist. What the government is basically telling me is 'you cannot exist,' that 'you are wrong,' and that 'you do not exist.'"

Most prisons and jails in the U.S. house inmates based on their sex assigned at birth, according to Strangio. "This practice itself is cruel, as it offers no consideration for the particular gender and safety needs of individual transgender prisoners," he said.

Manning spoke with me for Cosmopolitan earlier this year, in her first-ever interview with the press, about her lifelong desire to live as a woman and her quest for medical care. She told me she feels "like a joke" to military officials and that it is "painful and awkward" to wear her hair in a male style. "I am torn up," she said. "I get through each day OK, but at night, when I'm alone in my room, I finally burn out and crash." Our interview was done by mail, as the prison does not allow inmates to speak with reporters by phone or in person.

Manning was sentenced to prison in August 2013 for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to Wikileaks in 2010. Known as Bradley Manning at the time, she said she leaked the files to unveil the human cost of war. Supporters called her a whistleblower. Prosecutors called her a criminal and traitor who put soldiers at risk. After the sentencing, Manning announced she is a woman, legally changed her name from Bradley to Chelsea, and began seeking treatment for gender dysphoria. Military doctors had diagnosed her with the condition, according to the ACLU.

This summer, Manning was found guilty of prison violations that included having a tube of expired toothpaste, and unauthorized magazines and books in her prison cell. The publications, which were confiscated, included a copy of Cosmopolitan containing my interview with her.

Strangio says the publications were "permissibly received through the mail." (Cosmopolitan had mailed the magazine to the prison.) According to Strangio, Manning was accused of not properly labeling the publications with her name and inmate number. Strangio says that no publications in her cell were labeled but only certain ones were confiscated. (Other seized publications included The Advocate, Out, and Vanity Fair with Caitlyn Jenner on the cover, among others.) "It certainly feels that particular materials were targeted and at a particular time when Chelsea was exercising her voice," Strangio says, noting that the publications have not been returned.

Manning has been writing for The Guardian as well as Medium, filing her columns by mail, as she has no Internet access. She has also been dictating Tweets to supporters over the phone, detailing her life in jail.

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